We had four companies come to our home and give us a bid for installing granite in our kitchen and two baths. E.E. Granite was cheaper by far, so we awarded them the job and gave them the deposit. A key factor for us was that we be able to go to the warehouse and select the slabs for our project because there can be much variation from slab to slab. We had this written on the contract. We went to the warehouse in New Orleans and picked out our slabs. Then Jay, the manager at the Houma store, calls to set up the install time and tells us that he already ordered the slabs for us and had them at the fabricator. We explained, as best we could on the phone because there is a big language barrier since Jay is Chinese and speaks broken English, that this was unacceptable and that he needed to use the slabs that we picked out.
A few days and phone calls later, Jay calls to tell us that his boss said he cannot do the job. His boss is John, who runs the store in Lafayette. We spoke to John, who also speaks broken English, on the phone numerous times to no avail. He wanted to return our deposit check and we wanted him to do the job as agreed. First he said that he could not do the job because we did not want a seam in our kitchen island and he would have to do the island in two pieces with a seam. When Jay came out and measured and gave the bid, he did not say we would have to have a seam in the island and we made it clear that we wanted it to be a single piece. I suspected that this was just an excuse that John was giving us, so I called his bluff and said that we would agree to the seam. Then he said that none of his fabricators were willing to work with the slabs we had picked out. He said they were afraid it would break. We said that this was unacceptable. They knew what type of granite we picked out and came to our home and saw all the counters before they gave us the bid! We insisted that if his fabricators would not do it, that we could provide fabricators whom he could subcontract for the job. He refused.
So, even though we had a signed invoice from them and had given them the deposit, they refused to make things right and do the job as promised. Threats to involve the Better Business Bureau and an attorney did not work either. Disgusted and at a dead end, we stopped payment on the deposit check and awarded the job to Ever Bright Home Center, who did a marvelous job and were professional and courteous from start to finish. They used the slabs we picked out and did our island without a seam!
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